We read websites like we did 100 years ago

The Nielsen Norman Group - user experience researchers - recently released their latest report on how people read online. It builds on work going back as far as 1997 - about a century in internet-years. (Internet-years work like dog-years: 1 internet-year = 4 human years.)

One finding jumped out at me:

Even though the internet is infinitely more ubiquitous now.

Even though we've had a generation grow up with Google.

Even though 2-year olds have iPads .

The way people read websites hasn't changed. To quote ...

People are not likely to read your content completely or linearly. They just want to pick out the information that is most pertinent to their current needs. We can design content that supports scanning by:

Using clear, noticeable headings and subheadings to break up content and label sections so that people can scan to find only what they’re most interested in

Placing information up front (in other words, “front-loading”) in the structure of our content, as well as in subheadings and links, to allow people to understand the message quickly while scanning

Employing formatting techniques like bulleted lists and bold text to allow the eye to focus on the most important information

Improving page speed helps improve landing page experience. Google's guidance is broad, not specific. That makes it hard to know what to do. Google does provide one specific set of instructions, following these will improve landing page experience and boost conversion rates.

Here's a small tweak to the contact form on your website that'll make it easier for people to complete it. Adding autocomplete to your form fields is one of those 1% kaizen improvements. They all add up.

You get the highest conversion rates from landing pages that concentrate on convincing visitors to do just one thing. Offer visitors too many choices and they bounce. But what if there are two equally good things your visitor could do?

The number of website enquiries you get is going to fall off a cliff after 24th of October if your website doesn't use HTTPS. After the 24th of October 2017, Google Chrome will warn people that web pages with forms are insecure unless they’re served over HTTPS. Here's how to fix this.